After watching the weather forecast last night, we were looking forward to going out for a bike ride on the lovely day that the lady on TV had mentioned.
So after a leisurely coffee whilst catching the news headlines, we were more than happy to be able to get out on that rare, not too hot, not too windy, not too chilly day that hardly ever occurs on a bank holiday weekend in a seaside resort like Littlehampton. We are lucky to have a half decent cycle path running away from L.A as the locals call it; the H is silent here abouts, so that was the way we started out, toward Bognor Regis and Chichester. We passed several friends also out on there bikes but they were on their way back. One of them sporting the new Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club Bike shirt that was in a new colourway after many years of their dark blue kit. The bright ‘Pink’ version, will make their club members much easier to spot during races, Steve and I both thought it was a good move and a huge improvement.
I wear long sleeves even in summer most of the time since, at my ripe old age, my skin is very sensitive and as thin as tissue paper, so I cannot do with catching the sun. Every other exposed area of skin is plastered with sun block, which does seem to work. I have suffered sunburn in too many long events. My skin wrecked by those long hot days.
Today proved to have the busiest traffic ever seen in this part of the world, as if today was June 21st already and simply everybody had taken their Freedom Day early and anybody who owned a car was indeed out driving it around; sadly many of them had forgotten how to drive with any respect for other drivers, and pedestrians and most certainly seemed to be out to get cyclists. A good cycle path is wonderful, but the points where the roads have to be crossed between one section and the next, are pretty close to death traps, since of course there cannot be lights at every crossing but a little consideration wouldn’t go amiss. The world is a bad mannered, foul mouthed place at times, I had not realised that motorists kept their windows open, just so they could shout abuse.
On the way home we took a short detour to get a coffee, at about 11 am. We like The Boat House which as it name suggests, is right by the river, by the now quite tiny harbour and near the old shipyards, most of which have long been converted into this and that.
When Steve went inside, with his mask on, to order, Julie the owner/manager, said we could have just coffee, but that they still serving breakfast and were shortly starting to serve lunch. Mmmmm….. Breakfast …… Not something we normally have. Steve ordered egg on bubble and squeak with bacon on the side. The boat house is not a ‘greasy spoon’, no not at all, it is a class act as café’s go, and the dish when it was served, looked better than most things served to the celebrity guest’s, on The Saturday Kitchen on TV. We sat under a parasol on the terrace and really enjoyed this rare, beautifully presented treat.
We didn’t go directly home when we left The Boat House but rode our bikes along Rope Walk to the mouth of the River Arun at West Beach to take a look, and a few photos from the riverside toward the main tripper’s beach on the other side of the river. It was slightly worrying sight since the first breakwater on the other side, right next to what is in fact, the second fasted river in the country. The tide was out as far as it goes and holiday makers fresh from Lockdown one assumes, had taken their precious children right to the edge of the water line just yard or so from the point where the river meets the open sea at its very narrow mouth. The kiddies were having a whale of a time playing on the sand. Where the tide would soon be on the turn and start rushing up river, in it’s usual entertaining fashion toward todays high tide at 3.10 pm I believe.
There are large signs, mostly ignored by day trippers, advising that that first beach on the East Beach can be dangerous at high water.
Or maybe I am just an old worrier.
It is only two miles from our home to the beach, so we didn’t have far to ride back and were both very happy to have had such an enjoyable morning.
